


Jolly

by Fox1013



Category: Wonderfalls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox1013/pseuds/Fox1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tis the season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jolly

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ghost lingering

 

 

The Mouthbreather told her twelve minutes before closing that she would be the one to decorate the store Christmas tree, and Jaye wondered whether or not throwing the box of ornaments back at him would get her fired or just put on mandatory probation.

"Are you serious?" she asked finally, staring blankly at the large cardboard box resting in her arms.

"Under my assistant managementship, Wonderfalls is going into the twenty-first century."

Jaye blinked repeatedly. "Not really clarifying."

"It's Christmas, Jaye. We're going to be competitive. And _festive_."

"I don't do festive," Jaye said. "It's like asking Mickey Mouse to do a striptease. It makes everyone uncomfortable."

"Jaye. Let me tell you a little something about retail." His fingers formed air quotes and Jaye winced as he continued. "We're here about image. And we want to be new. Happening. Current."

"We sell crappy souvenirs to people who think hors d'oeuvres are a special type of prostitute."

"You have long been the albatross around this store's neck, Jaye."

She squinted at him. "Did one of you kill me and forget to mention it?"

"Tomorrow's decoration day. Bring your favorite Christmas CD and we'll rock away the hours."

"I'm not even working tomorrow."

"Didn't I tell you?" He smiled. "Mandatory."

***

"Fate is taunting me," Jaye said.

"Fate's not taunting you," Mahandra said. "The Mouthbreather is taunting you. Fate's just not giving you a break."

"If I had a dick? I would be inviting fate to suck it right about now." Jaye slumped at her bar stool and stared straight ahead of her. The bar was supposed to be her sanctuary. Instead it was wallpapered with the Christmas spirit, from twinkling lights to stuffed reindeer to a giant wreath positioned right over the bar. "You guys really went all out with the holiday season crap."

"Well, yeah. Tis the season for crass commercialism and murdering greenery." Mahandra grinned. "And overtime pay."

Jaye squinted up. "How long did it take you to put that up?" she asked.

"The wreath? Three Kamikazes and a scotch, neat."

"Serving?"

"Drinking."

"I don't think they give us those at the store."

"You know, those little airplane bottles could fit in your bra."

"Possibly." Jaye groaned. "This is like a nightmare."

"The one where you're stuck in a disco and everyone's making you do the Saturday Night Fever dance?"

"Worse. One where I have to pretend to give a crap about people around me."

"Those are the ones that make me wake up screaming," Mahandra said lightly.

"Tis the season."

"What?" Jaye asked.

"I just said I wake up screaming. It was a volley for you to make a _Silence of the Lambs_ reference."

Jaye's eyes narrowed on the culprit: a small stuffed animal shaped like a snowman. "Tis the season!" it chirped again.

"I could kill you with my bare hands," Jaye hissed.

Mahandra followed her line of vision. "Is the snowman threatening you, Ebenezer?"

"This entire season is."

"Two gin and tonics?" Eric offered. Jaye and Mahandra moved their elbows to allow him room on the table to sling their drinks. "Sorry it took so long. Have a complimentary candy cane!" he added with a grin.

"I wouldn't advise that if I were you," Mahandra said. "She's a violent one. She almost took his eye out."

"The man over there?" Eric asked, nodding towards the other end of the bar.

"No, the very suspicious-looking one with the carrot nose."

"Guess who's got early morning decorating duty at the store?" Jaye explained.

"Oh. Well, we can't have him harassing our patrons, can we?" Eric carefully turned the snowman around so he was facing the wall.

"Tis the season!" the snowman squawked.

"I _hate_ the season," Jaye said. "I hate everything _about_ the season. I hate the decorations, and the songs, and the way that people who are not pretending to be an old man from the North Pole wear Santa hats in public. I hate reindeer and snowman and elves. And you know what I hate more than anything else? Greenery."

Eric turned to the wreath. "If I take this down, will your blood pressure return to normal?"

"Don't bother," Jaye said with a wry smile. "I have to go see my family anyway. It's Tree Decorating Time, and I'm late."

"When were you supposed to get there?" Eric asked.

Jaye checked her watch. "Three hours ago."

"Want me to take back your drink?" he offered.

Mahandra and Jaye stared at him in horror. "She said she had to go see her _family_ ," Mahandra reminded, as Jaye chugged first her own drink, and then Mahandra's.

"Happy holidays," Jaye said, grabbing her jacket. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

She heard Mahandra cheerily calling "Try not to kill anyone!" to her as she walked away.

***

"You could have called," Mom said.

"I couldn't find a phone," Jaye said.

"Oh, you mean they haven't fixed the one at the bar yet?" Sharon asked.

"Funny."

"Come on, Sharon, be nice," Aaron said. "She's too busy arguing with inanimate objects to argue with us."

"They're better conversationalists, too," Jaye said mildly. "What is this crap?"

"What crap, dear?" Mom asked. "Sharon, pass the tinsel?"

A large pack of silver tinsel changed hands. Jaye shook her head and focused on the box of ornaments in front of her. "You know, I really just came here to do my laundry."

"You don't even have your laundry with you," Sharon said. "Unless you're just here to pick up a box of clothespins and some rope?"

"I don't even like the holiday season, you know," Jaye reminded.

"You've told us, dear," her mother said. "Just put up the ornaments."

Jaye ignored the tree to fish through the box until she found something that might interest her. "Hey, look, it's my first ornament!" she announced, holding it up to the light. It was a glass clown, chipped in three places, the words "Baby's First Christmas" almost entirely worn off.

Dad looked over. "Aw, Mr. Blinkle!" he said. "That's full of Christmas spirit, right there."

"We should burn it," Jaye suggested.

"We can't do that!" Dad protested. "Yours is the only one we have left. Aaron's first ornament was a casualty of his tenth-grade militant Buddhism."

"And mine," Sharon said, "was a casualty of bitterly jealous ten-year-old Jaye."

"Which is a pity," Jaye countered. "Because it was so much like you. Always spreading her joy, making the yuletide g-"

"Of course, it's sometimes important to move on," Sharon interrupted.

"Tis the season," Mr. Blinkle said.

Jaye hung him on a low branch in the back.

***

She left after midnight, covered in pine needles, carrying an aluminum tray of fresh store-bought gingerbread men, and cursing the vast majority of mankind. When she got home and kicked in the door, she wanted nothing other than to sleep.

She'd long since removed certain things from her trailer. Magnets with faces, cartoon ads from pizza places, anything that could speak. But she'd forgotten the television.

She'd forgotten Christmas specials.

Between the late show and the late late show, there was an ad for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In the middle of the Misfits song, Rudolph turned to her and said "Tis the season."

She hit the mute button.

"Tis the season," he said again.

Jaye moaned. "You're made of clay," she reminded. "And like thirty years old."

"Forty," Rudolph replied. "Tis the season."

"What do you want me to do?" Jaye demanded. "Kill someone? Maim someone? Drown them in eggnog?"

"Tis the season," Rudolph said again.

"Tis the season to _what_?"

"Tis the season," Rudolph said. This time he was singing it.

Jaye threw her remote at the TV.

***

She got to work twelve minutes late, and when she opened the door, she was bombarded by a bubble gum pop version of the Twelve Nights of Christmas. She was about to turn around and call in sick when the Mouthbreather saw her.

_Crap._

"Do you have your CD?" he called.

"Sorry," Jaye said. "All my Christmas cheer is still on vinyl."

"You're late, with no music?" he repeated dubiously. "Are you _trying_ to Grinch up everyone's holiday spirit?"

"Why bother? I do such a good job without any effort."

"Tis the season," said one of the Wonderfalls teddy bears.

"Tis the season," the Mouthbreather said at the same time.

Jaye stared at him in horror. "To ruin my life?"

"Happy holidays!"

Sighing, Jaye positioned herself at the base of the tree. It was easy to thread the garland around and around, easy to trim with lights, easy to ignore the box of ornaments for a while.

Even if it periodically spoke.

Jaye ignored it until she couldn't do anything else. Strings of popcorn, snow-in-a-can, the star at the top that required the ladder.

"Tis the season!" the box chorused one more time.

Jaye looked around desperately. Nothing left.

Damn it.

She slit the packing tape with a box cutter and opened up the cardboard lid. Then she picked up the closest ornament with a face and held it up close to her own. "Tis the season to do what?" she hissed.

It was a raccoon in a Wonderfalls shirt. It didn't say a word.

"Tis the season to do _what_?"

Silence.

"If you don't tell me," Jaye said, "I am using this box cutter on everyone in this box. This store will be filled with the cotton carnage of your brethren."

"Be jolly," the raccoon said. "Tis the season to be jolly."

"That's all I need to do?" Jaye demanded. "If I'm jolly, will you stop talking to me?"

"Tis the season," the raccoon said.

Jaye took two slow, shallow breaths, and then sighed. "Okay. Fine. I'm cheery. Are you happy now?"

"Tis the season."

Jaye reached into the box and pulled out a handful of ornaments. She began hanging them on the tree, humming along to the music playing in the store. She moved on to the rest of the decorations, the greenery that was piled in the back room. She _volunteered_ for it. She was vaguely aware that to the rest of the world, she must have looked almost... festive.

Crazy.

When the Mouthbreather came by with store Santa hats with employee names on them, she didn't even make a sarcastic comment, although she had to bite her tongue.

She was surprised to spin around at one point and almost crash into-

"Eric?"

"Hey!" he said. "I, ah, I remembered you had work. And you said you'd be having a bad time, so I thought I'd- ah-" He waved a bouquet of flowers. "I was going to make it poinsettias, but Mahandra said that might be a bad idea. Of course, she said that if I went by the store right now I'd find you in handcuffs, speaking backwards in tongues and vomiting pea soup."

Jaye grinned. "Well. We had a little change of plans."

He smiled back. "Is that so?"

"Yup. Hey." She pointed above his head.

He looked up. Mistletoe. She grinned as he tried to control his double take.

"And you caught the Christmas spirit?" he asked.

"I guess," she said, "it was kind of contagious."

And when she kissed him, the greenery and the carols and the stupid fluffy bright red hat hardly seemed to matter at all.

 


End file.
